Saturday, July 19, 2008

Sparks #2 (of 6) – A Spotlight Review

The Premise: A “golden age” super hero walks into a newspaper to report a murder, his. Then we begin to learn the story of Sparks. The first issue relates his origin and how he teams up with a super heroine and life is sweet.

The Story for Part 2: This issue his life takes a hard downward turn. Last issue we saw Sparks and Lady go after the bad guy. This issue we see Sparks has no memory of what happened, the cop they were trying to save is dead and Lady is beaten up. Another hero is seen comforting Lady. Sparks' life is basically ruined as they believe him to be the killer and his secret identity is now public. The new hero Sledge has taken Sparks place as the city’s main hero and as Lady’s lover. Sparks is on the outside looking in. His life continues into a downward spiral. Parallel to that story line we also see that someone is coming after Sparks in the present day story line also. I want spoil the ending, but some of the choices Sparks make are not typical hero choices.

I like the time setting being pre-World War II, it gives it more flair and a higher believability factor as Sparks is basically a non-powered hero as far as we know. The story is so good that when we flash back to “present day” I had forgotten that we were flashing back.

JM Ringuet’s art has a strong noir quality to it and you can see his work getting stronger and stronger. JM’s work has a perfect vibe to it that creates a unique look for Sparks. It has the feeling of being a classic 30s/40s noir type film.

Even if you missed the first issue I believe the book to be very accessible and I would encourage you to buy issue #2 even if you never got issue #1.

Overall Grade A

The tag line: Sparks is a golden age noir super hero saga that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go.